Comments on: Turn Down the Lights, Funny Man

By: Jeff Tidball

Jeff Tidball — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:17:19 +0000

I’ve played in plenty of games where people are lauging at in-game things, and it doesn’t pose a problem. Do you draw the same distinction?

Definitely.

By: Betsy

Betsy — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:31:32 +0000

This makes a lot of sense. And it’s something I hadn’t noticed until playing a game without the “pay the kitty” penalty for making out-of-game comments.

To me, there’s a big difference between being the funny-guy and doing or sayng something funny in the process of being your character or describing your character’s actions. There’s a lot of room for humor in-game. The problem comes when the humor pulls people out of the game. I’ve played in plenty of games where people are lauging at in-game things, and it doesn’t pose a problem. Do you draw the same distinction?

By: Will Hindmarch

Will Hindmarch — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:04:26 +0000

We had a player-to-player award mechanic (for stunting, more or less, and much better than Exalted’s “rules for stunting”) built into our cyberpunk action Storyteller game back in the 1990s, in which players awarded additional dice to each other for things that were, generally, awesome—from dialog to action.

They could not be awarded for out-of-play activities. This wonderfully help to keep us playing. (Hi Marty!)

As it is, one of my great failings as a GM is that so much of every game session devolves into chatter or stand-up comedy or whatever. It irks me.

By: Paul Tevis

Paul Tevis — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:45:21 +0000

To me, this is one of the genius bits of Primetime Adventures. Saying "That was awesome" to another player is built right into the mechanics.

By: Marty

Marty — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:29:44 +0000

Amen.

I have been the funny guy (Hi Will) and I have suffered from the other funny guy. I have two gaming groups now. The tuesday night play guys do it more frequently–then again, they’ve not been as invested in the stories as my other groups. Typically one of us says, “ease into the RP guys” and we get back into the flow.

My monday night group, made up of remenants from my favorite gaming group of all time, doesn’t do “funny guy” thing as often. That group’s problem is our history. We seem to be stuck with the memories of previous games and sessions more so than the current story.